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Saturday, November 15, 2014

Dangerous Times: Obama Declared War on China

CNN on 12 November reported Obama
administration is suddenly focused on removing Assad as the core of its
anti-ISIS strategy, once again submitting to Turkey and Arab Gulf states
that enabled ISIS to begin with, and are actually contributing very
little to the anti-ISIS efforts to be dictating such orders to
Washington.

Moreover, these demands are harmful to US
security interests—redefining US anti-ISIS mission to one of anti-Assad
mission—and thereby potentially drawing in Eurasian powers of China,
Russia and Iran into open military conflict against the US.

Presently the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis is
actually tacitly supporting the US-led coalition, and Assad is allowing
US use of its airspace to strike ISIS and other Islamic extremist
groups.

Now, Ankara, Riyadh and Doha’s obsession on
removing Assad and hoping to replace him with a proxy Islamist regime is
throwing a monkey wrench into coalition efforts. With Islamist
strongholds spanning from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Egypt, this
risks turning the Eastern Mediterranean into an Islamic Lake, a threat
shared by Israel as well as EU members Cyprus and Greece.

This is also a threat to US’ Noble Energy,
Italy’s ENI, Korea’s KOGAS, Russia’s Gazprom, and other stakeholders
such as Jordan, Egypt, and Asian consumers interested in the newly
discovered natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.

As such, removing Assad for a probable
Islamist replacement that will also persecute the Christian, Kurdish,
Druze and Alawite communities in Syria; escalate the conflict by drawing
in two nuclear powers of China and Russia; harm development of
hydrocarbons in the Levantine Basin and further regional instability, is
not in US or EU’s security interest.

And it is definitely not in China’s interest.

Obama operates with a China blind spot on Syria and the Mideast

President Obama continues to operate with
large blind spots when it comes to Chinese interests, risking strategic
misjudgment according to Professor Zhen Wang of the Center for Peace and
Conflict Studies at Seton Hall University.

Wang argues this is not surprising given the
Obama administration’s China policy suffers from a rather incompetent
China team, “including senior positions in the White House, the State
Department, and the Pentagon, [that] are currently being held by ‘young
people’ who don’t have long-term experience in dealing with China
policy…many of whom are not even China experts.”

China also sees US hypocrisy and double standards in its Mideast policy.

According to a senior counter-terror advisor
to China’s Ministry of Public Security, while Washington criticizes
Chinese support for Iran, Beijing views US keeps unsavory allies such as
Turkey’s AKP that is “basically Muslim Brotherhood,” while its Saudi
Wahhabi ally bans women from driving when “at least women in Iran are
allowed to drive.”

Moreover, Washington tends to assume it is still a monopolistic power operating in a Mideast vacuum without other competitors.

While Moscow and Tehran have received more
international scrutiny for supporting Assad, Beijing also has vital
stakes in protecting this China-friendly regime.

In 2013 China overtook US as the world’s
largest trading nation. As such Chinese President Xi Jinping launched
the Eurasian Silk Road Economic Belt to safeguard China’s trading
routes, with an overland route of transport corridors connecting Asia
and Europe, and a maritime route connecting Indo-Pacific Ocean to the
Mediterranean Sea that meets in the Middle East.

Damascus, a traditional terminus node in the
ancient Silk Road, is what the Chinese call “Ning Jiu Li” or “cohesive
force,” and key link to the planned Chinese railway connecting Iran,
Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean.

While China’s trade is highly dependent on the
Suez Canal to reach its largest export market in Europe, after the Arab
Spring and increasing instability in the Suez, Beijing is seeking
alternative corridors. Chinese investment in Israel’s Med-Red rail
connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean that bypasses the Suez is
another key corridor.

Suez Canal security risks to Chinese shipping
are real. For example, in 2011 after Mubarak was overthrown, Chinese
cargo ships were severely delayed in the Suez at great costs.

Turmoil
following Morsi’s removal further increased security risks and on 31
August 2013, China’s COSCO Asia container ship came under fire
from two rocket-propelled grenades launched by al-Furqan Brigades, an
al-Qaeda affiliate, as it crossed the Suez Canal.

As Obama’s misguided policy continues to
foment regional instability in the Eastern Mediterranean by toppling
regimes in Libya, Egypt, possibly Syria, and paving way for anti-Chinese
Islamist groups that also support Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang, this
directly harms Chinese economic and security interests.

Major General Jin Yinan, a strategist at
China’s National Defense University, disclosed that Chinese Uyghur
terrorists from ETIM were joining anti-government rebels in
Syria–disconcerting to Beijing since these are rebels that Turkey and
Saudi Arabia in the anti-ISIS coalition intends to train–and in 2013
videos of Chinese rebels emerged that corroborates this link.

Moreover, according to counter-terror expert
Jacob Zenn, the main anti-Chinese militant group Turkistan Islamic Party
(TIP) also has a terror network in Istanbul that recruits Chinese
fighters to train in Syria and Iraq. TIP has carried out attacks in
Xinjiang and claimed or praised many others, including the October 2013
suicide car bombing in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, mass stabbing attacks
at Kunming and Guangzhou train stations, and double suicide bombings at
the Urumqi train station in Xinjiang this year.

Beijing is thus doubling down on supporting
her ally to counter Arab Gulf-influenced US policy that harms China’s
core interests.

Removing Assad may be “tipping point” for US war with China and Russia

Beijing is flexing her military muscle by
arming the Assad regime and conducting gunboat diplomacy with Russia off
the Syrian coast.

In February 2013, US sanctioned China’s
state-owned CPMIEC for military transfers to Syria that violates
nonproliferation legislation, on the heels of a 2011 US Congressional
Research Service report highlighting China provided Damascus with $300
million worth of arms from 2007 to 2010.

In July 2012, al Arabiya reported the
Syrian opposition slammed the Egyptian government for allowing a
Chinese ship loaded with arms for the Assad regime to pass through the
Suez Canal while in 2013 China, Iran, and Russia delivered $500 million a
month in oil and credit to Syria.

Beijing continues to protect Assad and joined
Moscow in May 2014 with the fourth UN Security Council veto on a western
resolution referring Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In June 2012 when Obama threatened airstrikes
against the Assad regime, Chinese and Russian navy conducted gunboat
diplomacy off the Syrian coast and continued with joint naval war games
in January 2013 to signal support for Assad. Jpost also reported China,
Russia, Iran and Syria were initially planning to conduct “Middle East’s
largest ever military exercise” with 90,000 troops, 400 aircrafts,
1,000 tanks and hundreds of rockets.

In the case of Russia, it is unrealistic to
expect Putin will relinquish his sole naval port of Tartus in the
Mediterranean, nor the recently ratified $100 million 25-year contract
between Russia’s Soyuzneftegaz and Assad regime for oil exploration off
the Syrian coast.

Soyuzneftegaz chairman Shafranik also plans to
build an oil pipeline between Iraq and Syria, and Imad Fawzi al-Shuebi
from the Centre of Strategic Studies in Damascus forecasts Syrian oil
production can make 6-7 million barrels daily in the future, possibly
placing fourth in the world in terms of its gas reserves.

Putin has thus announced the establishment of a
permanent Mediterranean naval task force to protect Russia’s expanding
regional interests. Similarly, Chinese security interests are also
expanding in the Eastern Mediterranean.

American and Chinese analysts often warned of a
“tipping point” in China-US relations beyond which the two conclude
conflict is unavoidable and begin preparing for war. Indeed, bilateral
relations are tense beneath the surface and on 12 November, renowned
Chinese military expert Michael Pillsbury penned a Foreign Policy article entitled “China and the United States are preparing for war.”

He documents Chinese military’s heightened
level of distrust towards the US given China is the center of US war
planning, thereby forcing Beijing to prepare for the eventuality of war.

Chinese military officers observe American war college journals often
feature articles on how to win a war against China, and a February 2014 article in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine entitled “Deterring the Dragon” was especially threatening.

The author, a retired naval commander,
proposed laying offensive underwater mines along China’s coast to close
China’s main ports and destroy its sea lines of communications. Even
more egregious is the recommendation of sending special operation forces
to arm China’s restive minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, at a time when
Beijing is suffering from its worst terrorist attacks the past 20
months.

Nonetheless, the Middle Kingdom has a
counter-measure, a famous strategy called “Sheng Dong Ji Xi (声东击西),
meaning make feint in the east and attack in the west.

Currently, Washington’s eyes are on China’s eastern flank in the Pacific.

However, should Obama attempt to remove Assad
and pave the way for an anti-Chinese Islamist regime that supports
extremist groups to attack Chinese territory, coupled with the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) perception that US would arm terrorists in
Xinjiang to destabilize China, Washington should not be surprised if
this becomes a “tipping point” for China to attack in the west, joined
by Russia and Iran.